having a sense of the feel as well as the shape of his favourites.
This was not because he had the faintest approach to orderliness, for
he would take down twenty volumes and never restore them to the same
place by any chance. It was a sort of motherly instinct by which he
watched over them all, and even loved prodigals who wandered over all
the study and then set off on adventurous journeys into distant rooms.
The restoration of an emigrant to his lawful home was celebrated by a
feast, in which, by a confusion of circumstances, the book played the
part of the fatted calf, being read afresh from beginning to end.
During his earlier and more agile years the Rabbi used to reach the
higher levels of his study by wonderful gymnastic feats, but after two
falls--one with three Ante-Nicene fathers in close pursuit--he
determined to call in assistance. This he did after an impressive
fashion. When he attended the roup at Pitfoodles--a day of historical
prices--and purchased in open competition, at three times its value, a
small stack ladder, Kilbogie was convulsed, and Mains had to offer
explanations.

"He's cuttit aff seevin feet, and rins up it tae get his tapmaist
bukes, but that's no' a'," and then Mains gave it to be understood that
the rest of the things the minister had done with that ladder were
beyond words. For in order that the rough wood might not scar the
sensitive backs of the fathers, the Rabbi had covered the upper end
with cloth, and for that purpose had utilised a pair of trousers. It
was not within his ability in any way to reduce or adapt his material,
so that those interesting garments remained in their original shape,
and, as often as the ladder stood reversed, presented a very impressive
and diverting spectacle. It was the inspiration of one of Carmichael's
most successful stories--how he had done his best to console a woman on
the death of her husband, and had not altogether failed, till she
caught sight of the deceased's nether garments waving disconsolately on
a rope in the garden, when she refused to be comforted. "Toom (empty)
breeks tae me noo," and she wept profusely, "toom breeks tae me."

One of the great efforts of the Rabbi's life was to seat his visitors,
since, beyond the one chair, accommodation had to be provided on the
table, wheresoever there happened to be no papers, and on the ledges of
the bookcases. It was pretty to see the host suggesting from a long
experience those coign